You Might Be a Twitter Addict

If you Twitter on the toilet, you might be a Twitter Addict

I love the Internet and I don’t think I would be any good at my job if I wasn’t a “net junkie”. Constantly educating oneself is important in this industry and social media helps us do that. However, are we crossing the line of effectiveness and moving into addiction?

Watching You

I have a ton of work to do, but I do watch Twitter and Facebook when I have time. Both are great and can be educational and advertising tools, but I have to say some of you out there just can’t not be on Twitter or Facebook. I wonder, when do these people eat, sleep, see their loved ones or work? So they question is, is everyone talking about Twitter because it really is that great or is it because they are addicted to it?

I have a friend, Scott, who had a great Facebook account and one day it was just gone. I called and was like, “Where are you?” and he said he realized that when he was planning parts of his day around what to do on Facebook it was time to delete the account and get back to work. I agree. Facebook is great and I have fun with it. I have made good money off of it too, but it shouldn’t replace the time I need to work or to spend real time with my family.

Isolation

My background is in Psychology, so I look at things from a different perspective sometimes. Working on the net is a great thing; I love it, but it can and does cause isolation. We are dealing with code on a screen, not real people. How healthy is it if all you do is deal with your computer? People need to interact with other people in real life to really be happy. Ever hear about the healing power of touch? People can’t touch your through a computer.

I have a 17 year old and of course I have friends with kids the same age and what I see is a lot of kids living in their bedrooms talking with friends on MySpace and Facebook and other sites, but they aren’t going out much and they aren’t real happy. Sometimes you just have to walk away and go hang with a human…enjoy human touch (no jokes here people!).

Information Overload

When I was working towards my masters in counseling I had a class where we discussed information overload. The professor said something I will never forget…He said if someone from the time of Jesus came to live in this time they would be dead in two weeks. Why? Information overload. He said that driving a car and dealing with traffic alone is very stressful on the body, then add the radio, cell phones, kids talking…we are overstressed. Then we stop and perhaps we go in the house where the TV is on non-stop and the phone never stops ringing and we have emails to check, families to take care and we have to get dinner ready and the kids homework done…our brains never get to stop. We wonder why there is so much depression, anxiety and cancer.

We have all learned to live and work under such stress and we don’t even realize it. You have phones, radios, TVs, iPods, email, Twitter, FriendFeed, cell phones and caffeine. (BTW, caffeine throws your body into the fight-or-flight response. Did you know that? If you drink it non-stop your body never gets to return to homeostasis)

It doesn’t. I understand how critically important the Web is if a business wants to do well, but we have to keep things in check. We have to make sure we are not isolating ourselves and we aren’t putting our brains through more than it can handle. We also have to make sure that the social media we are involving ourselves in has a purpose and a good result and isn’t just an addiction because of loneliness, a desire to be the best or whatever else.

For those of use that are involved in SEO, Internet Marketing and Social Media it is vitally important that we make sure we can walk away from the computer and live happily without (and even without your BlackBerrys, iPhones etc.) As of 3 PM every Saturday my computer goes off and I spend time with humans until Monday morning. Sometimes I do login to Facebook, but not often. I enjoy my time away and I rejuvenate myself.

So there is another one of my thoughts I had in the shower…I am late for dinner now. GO relax and speak to a human.

4 responses to “Social Media is Great, But Are We Becoming Addicted?”

Melissa – I’m totally with you on this. What’s more, you’ve articulated this very well. I think addiction to social media is especially common with SEO professionals, as its easy to tell yourself that its “work” and you are using it as a tool for link building or whatever. I’m on Twitter – @jonpayne – and I’m an SEO person. Maybe 5% of the time I’m on Twitter actually produces an ROI there. The other 95% of the time I’m playing, socializing, goofing off or whatever. I’m reading good tips, finding cool things… but I’m not really doing any actual work, and I’m sure as heck not relaxing and enjoying time with friends and family either. Its somewhere in the middle. I think that middle area is a bad place to be, so here’s to trying to break the addiction!